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Jeff Shantz

Syndicalism, Ecology and Feminism: Judi Bari’s Vision

According to the late Wobbly organizer and Earth Firster, Judi Bari,
a truly biocentric perspective must really challenge the system of
industrial capitalism which is founded upon the ‘ownership’ of the
earth. Industrial capitalism cannot be reformed since it is founded upon
the destruction of nature. The profit drive of capitalism insists that
more be taken out than is put back (be it labour or land). Bari extended
the Marxist discussion of surplus value to include the elements of
nature. She argued that a portion of the profit derived from any
capitalist product results from the unilateral (under)valuing, by
capital, of resources extracted from nature.
Because of her analysis of the rootedness of ecological
destruction in capitalist relations Bari turned her attentions to the
everyday activities of working people. Workers would be a potentially
crucial ally of environmentalists, she realized, but such an alliance
could only come about if environmentalists were willing to educate
themselves about workplace concerns. Bari held no naïve notions of
workers as privileged historical agents. She simply stressed her belief
that for ecology to confront capitalist relations effectively and in a
non-authoritarian manner requires the active participation of workers.
Likewise, if workers were to assist environmentalists it was reasonable
to accept some mutual aid in return from ecology activists.
In her view the power which manifests itself as resource
extraction in the countryside manifests itself as racism and
exploitation in the city. An effective radical ecology movement (one
which could begin to be considered revolutionary) must organize among
poor and working people. Only through workers’ control of production and
distribution can the machinery of ecological destruction be shut down.
Ecological crises become possible only within the context of
social relations which engender a weakening of people’s capacities to
fight an organized defence of the planet’s ecological communities. Bari
understood that the restriction of participation in decision-making
processes within ordered hierarchies, prerequisite to accumulation, has
been a crucial impediment to ecological organizing. [1]
This convinced her that radical ecology must now include demands for
workers’ control and a decentralization of industries in ways which are
harmonious with nature. It also meant rejecting ecological moralizing
and developing some sensitivity to workers’ anxieties and concerns.
To critics this emphasis on the concerns of workers and the need
to overcome capitalist social relations signified a turn towards
workerist analysis which, in their view, undermined her ecology.
Criticisms of workers and ‘leftist ecology’ have come not only from deep
ecologists, as discussed above, but from social ecologists, such as
Murray Bookchin and Janet Biehl, who otherwise oppose deep ecology.
Social ecology guru Bookchin has been especially hostile to any idea of
the workplace as an important site of social and political activity or
of workers as significant radical actors. Bookchin repeats recent talk
about the disappearance of the working class [2],
although he is confused about whether the working class is ‘numerically
diminishing’ or just ‘being integrated’. Bookchin sees the
‘counterculture’ (roughly the new social movements like ecology) as a
new privileged social actor, and in place of workers turns to a populist
‘the people’ and the ascendancy of community. Underlying Bookchin’s
critique of labour organizing, however, is a low opinion of workers
which he views contemptuously as ‘mere objects’ without any active
presence within communities. [3]
Lack of class analysis likewise leads Janet Biehl to turn to a
vague ‘community life’ when seeking the way out of ecological
destruction. [4]
Unfortunately communities are themselves intersected with myriad
cross-cutting and conflicting class interests which, as Bari showed,
cannot be dismissed or wished away. Notions of community are often the
very weapon wielded by timber companies against environmentalist
‘outsiders.’
Biehl recognizes the ecological necessity of eliminating
capitalism but her work writes workers out of this process. This is
directly expressed in her strategy for confronting capital: ‘Fighting
large economic entities that operate even on the international level
requires large numbers of municipalities to work together’. [5]
Not specific social actors — workers — with specific contributions to
make, but statist political apparatuses — municipalities. To confront
‘macrosocial forces like capitalism ... [Biehl proposes] ... political
communities’. [6] All of this is rather strange coming from someone who professes to be an anarchist.
Biehl even states that the ‘one arena that can seriously
challenge’ current hierarchies is ‘participatory democratic politics’
but makes no reference to the specificity of the workplace in this
regard. [7]
Yet, within capitalist relations, the workplace is one of the crucial
realms requiring the extension of just such a politics. And that
extension is not likely to occur without the active participation of
people in their specific roles as workers. Bari, concerned with
encouraging this participation, did not have the luxury of overlooking
the everyday concerns of workers.
As a longtime feminist and unionist Judi Bari was well aware of
tendencies within the labour movement, and the left generally, to treat
concerns of gender or environment as subordinate to the larger movement
or worse as distractions. Bari was no vulgar materialist given to
economistic analyses, however, and she rejected Dave Foreman’s
characterization of Local 1 as simply ‘leftists’ or a ‘class struggle
group’. She too remained sharply critical of Marxist socialism and what
she saw as its acceptance of the domination of nature.
We are not trying to overthrow capitalism for the benefit of the
proletariat. In fact, the society we envision is not spoken to in any
leftist theory that I’ve ever heard of. Those theories deal only with
how to redistribute the spoils of exploiting the Earth to benefit a
different class of humans. We need to build a society that is not based
on the exploitation of Earth at all — a society whose goal is to achieve
a stable state with nature for the benefit of all species. [8]
For inspiration Bari turned to non-authoritarian traditions of
socialism. Specifically, her materialism took the form of syndicalism —
revolutionary libertarian unionism. [9]
Bari developed her green syndicalist approach as an attempt to think
through the forms of organization by which workers could address
ecological concerns in practice and in ways which broke down the
multiple hierarchies of mainstream trade unionism. She recognized in
syndicalist structures and practices certain instructive similarities
with the contemporary movements for ecology and radical feminism.
Historically anarcho-syndicalists and revolutionary unionists
fought for the abolition of divisions between workers based upon, for
example, gender, race, nationality, skill, employment status and
workplace. Revolutionary unions, such as the IWW, in fighting for ‘One
Big Union’ of all working people (whether or not they were actually
working) argued for the equality of workers and the recognition of their
unity as workers while realizing that workers’ different experiences of
exploitation made such organization difficult.
Like radical feminists, anarcho-syndicalists have argued for the
consistency of means and ends. Thus syndicalists organize in
non-hierarchical, decentralized and federated structures which are
vastly different from the bureaucratic structures of mainstream trades
unions which have been largely resistant to participation by women. The
alternative organizations of anarcho-syndicalism are built upon
participation, mutual aid and cooperation. Anarcho-syndicalism combines
the syndicalist fight against capitalist structures and practices of
exploitation with the anarchist attack on power and awareness that all
forms of oppression must be overcome in any struggle for liberty. The
IWW has long fought for the recognition of women as ‘fellow workers’
deserving economic and physical independence (i.e. self-determination)
and access to social roles based upon interests and preferences. [10]
Regarding the affinity between anarcho-syndicalist organization and ‘second wave’ feminist practice Peggy Kornegger [11]
has commented: ‘The structure of women’s groups bore a striking
resemblance to that of anarchist affinity groups within
anarchosyndicalist unions in Spain, France, and many other countries.’
Kornegger laments that feminists did not more fully explore the
syndicalist tradtions for activist insights.
Besides, as Purchase argues, industrial unions ‘are composed of
people — feminists, peace activists and ecologists included — and are
simply a means by which people can come to organise their trade or
industry in a spirit of equality, peace and co-operation.’ [12] The exclusion of workers from new social movements discussions is both arbitrary and inaccurate.
Exactly what sense we are to make of such sweeping dismissals of
centuries of sustained resistance to the encroachments of capital and
state by ordinary working people is quite unclear. Besides, in the
absence of state-supported industrial [or green] capitalism, trades
unions and workers’ co-operatives — be they bakers, grocers, coach
builders, postal workers or tram drivers — would seem to be a quite
natural, indeed logical and rational way of enabling ordinary working
people to co-ordinate the economic and industrial life of their city,
for the benefit of themselves rather than for the state or a handful of
capitalist barons, and it is simply dishonest of Bookchin to claim that
anarchism has emphasised the historical destiny of the industrial
proletariat at the expense of community and free city life. [13]
The concerns raised by Foreman, Bookchin and Biehl are well
taken. Indeed, much Old Left thinking, of various stripes, did fail to
appreciate the causes or consequences of ecological damage. However, as
Graham Purchase has pointed out, the reasons for this are largely
historically specific rather than inherent. [14]
The ecological insights of social ecologists like Bookchin (e.g.
ecological regionalism, and green technologies) are not incompatible
with syndicalist concerns with organizing workers.
Bari asked how it could be that there were neighbourhood
movements targeting the disposal of toxic wastes but no workers’
movement to stop the production of toxics. She argued that only when
workers are in a position to refuse to engage in destructive practices
or produce destructive goods could any realistic hope for lasting
ecological change emerge. The only way to bring the system to a
standstill is through mass-scale non-cooperation, what an earlier
generation of syndicalists knew as the ‘General Strike.’ Bari’s vision
for Earth First! combined a radicalization of the group’s initial ideas
of biocentrism and an extension of the decentralized, non-hierarchical,
federative organization, the nascent syndicalist structure of EF!, into
communities and workplaces.
While agreeing with the old guard of Earth First! that efforts
should be given to preserving or re-establishing wilderness areas, Bari
saw that piecemeal set-asides were not sufficient. The only way to
preserve wilderness was to transform social relations. This meant that
Earth First! had to be transformed from a conservation movement to a
social movement. Earth First! needed to encourage and support
alternative lifestyles. To speak of wilderness decontextualized the
destruction of nature.
Jeff Shantz is currently living in Toronto where he has been
active for several years with the Ontario Coalition Against Poverty
(OCAP). He is the host of the Anti-Poverty Report on community radio
station CHRY in Toronto and is a co-founder of his union’s Anti-Poverty
Working Group.

[3]
Bookchin goes so far as to claim that the ‘authentic locus’ of
anarchism is ‘the municipality.’ This is a rather self-serving claim
given that Bookchin has staked much of his reputation on building a
‘libertarian municipalist’ tendency within anarchism. It also runs
counter to almost all of anarchist history. (Bookchin, 1997, p.51) (See
Bookchin, 1990)

[9] For a detailed discussion of green syndicalist theory see Shantz (1999).

[10]
As Purchase (1997, p.32) awkwardly overstates: “Moreover the IWW ...
was the first union to call for equal pay and conditions for women and
actively sought to set up unions for prostitutes — and in doing so
achieved far more for the feminist cause than any amount of theorising
about the evolution of patriarchy could ever hope to have done.”

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